


look for my love where the sun shines

by adventurepants



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 17:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1949661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurepants/pseuds/adventurepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elsa is steady on the ice; she will see them through any storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	look for my love where the sun shines

“Would you really have stayed in that castle alone on the mountain forever?” Anna asks. “What would you have done all day?”

“I hadn't decided yet,” Elsa tells her, and remembers the rush of freedom that chased everything else away.

Anna asks, “What would you have eaten?”

“Snow crab,” Elsa says, and Anna laughs and laughs.

Elsa touches Anna all the time, now that she can. A bare, un-gloved hand on her arm, kisses on her cheeks.

The gates are always open and Anna is so, so happy.

They never say “goodnight” without also saying “I love you.” They never travel anywhere by boat.

It's winter now, normal winter, and they watch the snow fall together from a window in the library. There's a heavy storm coming, and the people of Arendelle are preparing for a long, harsh season. Elsa places her palm against the window, and through the glass her magic swirls shapes in the falling snow. Anna rests her head on her sister's shoulder. Elsa is steady on the ice; she will see them through any storm.

“You're still sad sometimes,” Anna says quietly. “I can tell.”

Elsa smiles. “Yes, little bird. Sometimes. But you're not, and that helps.”

“I'm too happy now to even let myself remember being sad. Even when I think of Mother and Father... I'm not sad to remember them now.”

“When I think of Mother and Father...” Elsa struggles to find the words, though her rapidly chilling hand makes her point clearly enough. But Anna is right there, warming it with her own. Little bird, little sun.

“You're angry at them,” Anna realizes, and she sounds so confused, as if this is more shocking than a magical winter, than a live snowman who they count among their dearest friends.

“Yes,” Elsa says. “Now that I'm older, now that I'm no longer afraid... sometimes I'm very angry.”

“But Elsa, they loved us! They were... they were all we had. And they're gone now.”

“I know they loved us. I know that. But we were so young, and we knew nothing in the world but to trust them, and they locked us away.” Elsa makes the window frost and then clear, frost and then clear. She has such fine control of her powers, now that she knows not to be afraid—and how could she ever have learned that, behind closed gates and locked doors, where the two people she trusted to care for her told her she must stay or else she might hurt someone. Might hurt Anna, again. “I'm so sorry I never let you in. But they insisted you never know I had magic, and I couldn't... I couldn't make it stop. I thought I would hurt you.”

Elsa loved the king and queen. She loves them still, because she doesn't know how not to love her parents. But there is a deep, dark feeling inside of her when she thinks of how, if they had lived, if they were here today, she would still be in a prison.

“I'm sorry too,” Anna says. “I'm sorry they made you think there was something wrong with you.”

Elsa turns away from the window, looks over the rows and rows of books. She's read them all, some more than once. It didn't matter the subject, she raced through any book her parents brought her, filling her solitary days with the only escape that was available to her. She memorized every happy ending, every battle won and pair of lovers reunited. But so, too, did she remember each wicked witch, each user of magic, who was defeated because they were dangerous and evil and _wrong._

“When I was bored I used to come in here and find the empty spots,” Anna says. “So then I knew what you were reading, and I could read it too, when it showed up again. So it was like... we were still sharing something.”

“Anna,” Elsa whispers, and closes her eyes.

“I didn't always make it through every book, though. I liked the stories, but the history books-” her nose crinkles with distaste.

Elsa laughs. “History is a story, Anna.”

“Well, sometimes not a very nice one. But the romances...” Anna sighs.

“The romances,” Elsa agrees. “They were my favorite, too.”

Anna looks at Elsa quietly for a long moment. “You'll have your own great romance someday, Elsa. I know you will.”

*

Elsa understands from a very young age that being a princess, the firstborn princess, means that someday she will be the queen of Arendelle. She is seven when she understands that she will take the title after her mother and father have died.

“Then I don't want to be queen,” she says, lip trembling and eyes filling with tears. “I don't want you to die!”

“It's all right, darling,” the queen says, pulling Elsa into her arms. “We have many, many years ahead of us. And when the time comes, you won't be alone. You shall have Anna.”

But the king and queen die young, and Elsa does not have Anna. Has not had her for ten years and won't have her for three more, and when Elsa thinks back on those days—the worst days, the darkest, when she was truly alone—her chest gets tight for a moment until she remembers it's over.

She asks Anna, once, what it was like for her, and Anna tells her quietly how long the funeral was, how formal and uncomfortable, and how everyone stared at her, and how no one asked her directly where her sister was but that she could hear them all whispering about it.

“Don't say you're sorry, Elsa,” Anna says before Elsa can get the words out. “Don't say that anymore. You know it wasn't your fault.”

Elsa hugs her sister tightly.

“We're okay now,” Anna says, and Elsa repeats it back, and knows it's true.

“We're okay now.”

*

Anna proposes to Kristoff in the spring, and Olaf is so excited when they tell him that he trips over a pebble and lands on his face and sends his nose flying out through the back of his head. Elsa carries it on a gust of icy wind back to him, smiling, and helps him right his crooked arms.

Anna loves Kristoff, and Elsa likes him very much, but she won't tolerate the trolls, and won't allow them into her home for the engagement party.

“But they're his family!” Anna says. “And after Kristoff and I are married, they'll be my family.”

Elsa clenches her fists and feels her nails press into her palms. _Breathe,_ she tells herself. _Release._ “I know that Kristoff cares for them, and that they took him in and gave him a home and a family, but they were not so benevolent to me. They made me think... they made me think my magic was so terrible that even remembering it would put you in danger. How could I ever stop being scared, after that?”

Anna looks down. “They did save me, though.”

Elsa sighs. “I know. And I'm so grateful for that. You know I am. But they brought fear into my life and I drowned in it for thirteen years. They can't come here, Anna. Please.”

Anna takes her hand. “All right. We won't bring them here. Kristoff and I will go see them alone.” She isn't angry, and she doesn't press Elsa to change her mind—not because Elsa is the queen but because Anna is _Anna_. She understands. Elsa feels so lucky to have her that she'll never quite be able to put it into words.

*

When Anna and Kristoff come home, Anna is wide eyed and raw, and Kristoff looks deeply ashamed.

“Anna!” Elsa says, surprised, and holds out her arms, and Anna tucks herself into her sister's embrace.

“They didn't just make me forget magic,” she says, and she sounds like she's been crying. “They took what was _mine_ to remember and they _changed it._ They shouldn't... they shouldn't _take_ things from people, they shouldn't take things and think it's helping.”

“They restored your memories?” Elsa asks, and Anna nods against her.

“An engagement gift,” Kristoff mumbles, and when Elsa looks up he takes a step back and won't meet her eyes.

But Kristoff is not responsible for anything the trolls have done, and Elsa knows far too well what it's like to feel shame for something she couldn't control. “It's not your fault, Kristoff,” she tells him. “Stop shuffling away like that. You're always welcome here.”

*

It becomes apparent quickly that Anna's restored memories of magic go back farther than they should. “Do you remember,” she'll say, and describe moments from her infancy that Elsa, only three at the time, can't quite call to mind.

“Do you remember the first time you showed me your magic?” Anna asks, and Elsa tries, but so many of her early memories of magic have been blotted out by the accident.

“I wouldn't stop crying, and Mother and Father didn't know what to do, and they were so tired, and you were so little. And you said, 'shh, Anna, look,' and reached out your hand and made the tiniest bird out of snow. I stopped crying as soon as I saw it fly.”

Elsa smiles and holds her hand out and three little snow birds rise up from her palm. They flap their tiny wings, flying in a circle close to the ceiling, and Elsa can almost remember.

“It was never scary. We were never scared. If they had let me remember magic, I... I wouldn't have been afraid of you. I wouldn't have let you be afraid.”

Elsa's hands get cold when she thinks of what might have been, should have been, and she remembers her sister, near death. _Anna_ , who she loves most in the world. Anna, made of ice. Her birds freeze and fall and shatter. Anna flinches at the sound, but it's not fear, not from the girl who never once believed her sister was the enemy.

And Elsa remembers: love will thaw. Her hands grow warm again.


End file.
